Chapter Twenty-Nine
It’s well past midnight when I’m awoken with a start by a footman. He’s shaking my shoulder roughly. For a moment I feel like I’m back in the fever dreams of May, but I blink against the sudden light of his lantern and realize I am awake.
“Come with me, miss,” he commands. He gives me no time to dress, so I follow him, barefoot, in my nightdress, across the wooden floors.
The room is dark, with only the bouncing light of his lantern to see by, but it is unmistakable that Olive’s bed is empty.
I glance across the hall to Faith and Marion’s room. Their beds are empty too, the blankets kicked all over the floor like they were pulled off in a hurry.
“Where are you taking me?” I fight to keep my voice steady.
He doesn’t answer.
The dew on the lawn is cold on the soles of my feet. The wind whips my unbound hair around my face, but I have no ribbon to tie it back.
Kensington Palace is dark with sleep, but the footman leads meup the main staircase to the throne room, where Queen Mor is waiting for me. I’m reminded of the Pact Parade, walking up these same stairs with my mother by my side. I was frightened then, too. But I’m so much braver now.
“Lady Ivy.” Queen Mor greets me with a serene smile. “I do always look forward to our time together.” She’s perfectly dressed as always, in an ink-black lace gown, her neck dripping with pearls.
I don’t want her to know I am afraid. “As do I, ma’am.”
“I wish we were meeting under happier circumstances. I’ve called you here to deliver the news that you have lost.”
“Excuse me—” I sputter.
“You’ve lost. You have not been selected to be Bram’s bride. It’s over.”
“But I’m winning.” I say it like a question. Wasn’t I winning? Wasn’t that what the points system was for?
“My decision is final.”
“Will my family be stripped of their titles and their lands?”
“I have no plans for that, currently. But I always reserve the right to change my mind.” It isn’t quite a relief, but it’s something.
I curtsy once more, too numb to do anything else. “Then I thank you for your time and your hospitality, Your Majesty. Please congratulate the Prince of Wales on his engagement on my behalf.”
I exit the throne room like I’m sleepwalking. I don’t even think to ask who won. Olive, probably. Who knows. It doesn’t matter.
I’ve failed, and so I know what I have to do next.
The footman escorts me down the stairs to the entrance of the palace. Waiting, with its doors open, is a shiny black carriage. “Your things have been packed for you,” he says.
“I’m going to be sick,” I reply. The footman opens his mouth and closes it, like royal protocol never gave him a script to reply to something like this.
I clutch my stomach. “Please excuse me.” I make a run for the side of the building, like I’m going to hurl in the bushes, but at the last second I sprint around the corner and up the hill that leads to the orangery.
There are footsteps behind me, but I am quick, and it’s too dark to see properly. The doors to the orangery close behind me, and I’m embraced by the warm humidity of the fruit trees.
I hurry through the tunnels and burst out through the false panel into Emmett’s room out of breath and sweaty. Inside his room it’s dark and quiet, with only dying embers in the fire and Pig and Emmett breathing softly in tandem. He sits up, awake the moment I step in.
“Ivy?” he asks groggily, running a hand through his hair, wild with sleep.
“I thought you were gone. I heard you were gone.” My throat is thick with tears that I swallow. I didn’t think he’d be here. I thought I could sit in front of this fire we once built together and feel him, one last time, before I let it all go. See Pig, maybe, if I was lucky. I just needed a moment to breathe before I did what had to be done next.
Emmett never did make anything easy.
He rubs the sleep from his eyes. His torso is bare, revealing his broken collarbone. “Are you all right?”
